Apple expected to adopt keyboard with scissor mechanism for 16-inch MacBook Pro | Hacker News Reader

Apple expected to adopt keyboard with scissor mechanism for 16-inch MacBook Pro

macrumors.com

124 pointsbjoko215 comments

Now if only they could also get rid of the TouchBar. Most frustrating "feature" ever as I keep accidentally pressing some parts of it while resting my hands or typing. Not to mention that I don't look down at the keyboard area as I type.

Keep the TouchID button, get rid of the rest, just like the current Airs.

"No, I don't want to enable Siri. I never want to enable Siri. I wish I could modify the Touch Bar."

You can remove Siri from the touch bar, though!

I had no idea. The option didn't originally show up in System preferences until I first modified the touch bar preferences via an Apps "view" menu. No idea why this is, but thanks for sending me looking.

If you disable Siri in the System Preferences, it will also not show up in the TouchBar.

This one didn't work for me either. Siri had been disabled for quite a while. But, I'm on a work laptop, so perhaps IT caused the problem in the first place.

Go to System Preferences / Extensions / Touch Bar and say "Customize Control Strip...". You will be presented a panel of options for things to drag to your Touch Bar, and your current Touch Bar icons will "wiggle". Use the mouse to drag the Siri icon from the Touch Bar to the panel (yes, this is a thing, try it!) and presto -- you've removed Siri from the Touch Bar.

Yeah. This is so amazingly unintuitive but kind of cool... And it worked!

-edit: In Mojave, I found it in prefs/keyboard/Customize Touch bar

I tried this and now if my pinky accidentally grazes past the Siri button with .0001 micrograms of force, it pops up a box asking me if I want to enable Siri.

I guess this is worse.

You rest your hands above the keboard? I don’t get most of the criticism of the touch bar except if someone miss the function keys. While it’s true that you need to take your eyes of the screen to use it, the same is true when using multiple screens, and it’s what it is, an extra screen.

I didn't know I did it until I used a touchbar MBP, but it turns out a couple of my right hand fingers drift up to the tops of the number keys when making certain chording presses, which is close enough to barely brush the edge of the touchbar. Took me weeks to figure out what was up—I had no idea I was doing it. iTunes kept opening for no reason, or sometimes other things would happen (but usually it was iTunes). I'm not about to re-train my 25 years of touch typing muscle memory to fit a silly single-vendor feature that's probably not gonna survive in anything like its current form anyway—and besides, I can't make it part of my regular workflow if I use an external keyboard any significant amount of time—so instead I set it to always show the same set of stuff (no per-app changing) and then remove almost everything from it, using spacers to make about 2/3 of it permanently blank.

It's the only way to make a new MBP usable for me. I have to all but disable the damn touchbar.

I also have to disable force-touch on the trackpad to be able to execute all but the shortest of click-and-drag operations. Disabling two of the headliner "advanced" UI features of new MBPs are now very early initial setup steps for me. Machine's toss-it-out-the-window frustrating if I don't.

I also have a lot of trouble with the Force Touch trackpad! Everyone else I know seems to have no issue with it, but I'm constantly triggering Force Touch when I don't want to. Add in the fact that Force Touch is pretty useless on the mac (three finger click to define replaces literally my only use case) and it was easy enough to just disable it. I guess the fact that Apple is ditching 3D Touch on the iPhone might mean the end of Force Touch on the Macbook, too.

I'm on the other end of this spectrum. I don't even click my trackpad, just use the very lightest of feather touches. I think the setting is called "Tap to click," and people that have problems with brushing up against their trackpad should not attempt it.

When I have the laptop in my lap the finger tips of my left hand often are above the keyboard. With function keys this is not much of a problem because you have to apply some pressure but the TouchBar is just too sensitive so I constantly trigger something.

One thing I appreciate is that the touchbar forced me to map escape to the caps lock key and I now do that on every computer, touchbar or not -- it's so much nicer for vim.

But then your only control key is in an almost unusable location, which is even worse!

What does it have to do with the control key ?

I have my control key mapped to caps lock and can't go back at this point.

Because control should be where caps lock is on most keyboards.

It is the one key re-map I cannot live without.

(Anyone who used a Sun keyboard for a considerable period time is familiar with this layout. I do not know if any other systems predated Sun in this regard.)

I always thought the position of the control key on the OLPC keyboard was a cute decision: http://wiki.laptop.org/images/1/1b/Keyboard_english.png

Several extra keys for typing useful symbols and non-english characters, and not a CapsLock in sight!

I believe the old space cadet keyboards did, and also that that is why emacs prioritizes the C- prefix for major chords.

> (Anyone who used a Sun keyboard for a considerable period time is familiar with this layout. I do not know if any other systems predated Sun in this regard.)

I believe the ASR33 may be the originator of Ctrl to the left of A:

https://www.bytecollector.com/images/asr-33_vcf_02.jpg

Other influential terminals such as the DEC VT series, and the ADM-3A also placed Ctrl along the home row (although on many of the DEC keyboards, there were two keys in the modern Caps Lock position - Ctrl to the left, and Caps Lock on the right).

Many early home computers had Ctrl in this position, including the Apple II and the original IBM PC.

The very first Sun workstation used a keyboard with the same layout as the DEC VT100, it then evolved into the more well known Sun layout, which later inspired the Happy Hacking Keyboard,

Sun (founded 1982) was certainly not the first. The Apple II (1977) put CTRL to the left of A, and every other II followed suit. I'm sure they weren't the first, either. The original IBM PC's Model F keyboard (1981) put control to the left of A, too.

The Macintosh didn't originally have a CTRL key, so Caps Lock went there. The first Mac to have CTRL seems to be the Macintosh II and SE, where you were offered the choice of the Apple Keyboard (control left of A) or Apple Extended Keyboard (caps lock left of A). Thus began decades of confusion.

Interestingly, the NeXT keyboard (1988) had no caps lock.

If you pressed Command and Shift, you activated "Shift Lock"

Because ctrl is important for terminal users, but Mac keyboards have it only in a very awkward almost unreachable place - so remapping caps lock to ctrl is a very common fix (which is supported natively in the settings app, too).

I have capslock mapped to escape when pressed by itself, and ctrl (or cmd) when pressed in combination with another key. Problem solved.

Yes, me too. Under Linux, you can use xcape to simulate this.

How do you do this?

Karabiner-Elements: https://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2017/07/how-map-caps-lock-es...

I'm a vim user myself and I already maped ctrl to the caps lock key, since I think that the ctrl key is much more awkward than esc.

Same. I did that because of tmux

Plus Ctrl + [ = Esc. That's so ingrained by this point I don't even notice I'm doing it 90% of the time.

I can understand why they felt the need to change up how the function row worked.

From a UX perspective what they do is opaque and application dependent. To learn what they do in each context you do have to go out of your way.

Though I wonder if it'd have worked better if they were still tactile buttons individual panels on them, so the application can reprint them with their actual function name.

I remember when some software came with stickers or cutouts to put on/around function keys.

Keys-with-panels may be too difficult/expensive and the single row is also more flexible (allows for sliders, for example). But I’ve not really used these keyboards, I don’t know how well do they work.

I think the TouchBar is here to stay. Non-programmers LOVE IT. Its crazy how many people come up and ask me about it at presentations. I was running a presentation the other day and had PowerPoint full screen and someone walked by and saw the mini slide previews and all the presenter controls on it and was absolutely blown away by it. They called over a few other people and they all left wanting a Mac.

For some its an irritation. For others its a revelation.

Might be one of those "designed to look good and sell more units, not for actual users" Apple ideas. There was a post about it on HN a few weeks ago. Edit: linked below

Perhaps something like this? https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/

You’re making big assumptions about programmers. I’d rather have the touch bar and I’m a programmer. One of the reasons is that, well, it’s programmable.

What tool do you prefer to program it?

BetterTouchTool

I'm a programmer and I like the touch bar. Intellij integrates it quite nicely, I can add terminal commands if I'm in the terminal, switching between email and calendar in Outlook also works well.

Sure it also has downsides but generic "F1" to "F12" buttons also isn't the pinnacle of UX.

I'm a programmer and I love it too. It looks really nice and the virtual buttons that appear in the different applications that I also use are really convenient (e.g. the settings button for my VMware VMs or the full control I have over Spotify as I work somewhere completely different).

The escape key being "hard to hit" is exaggerated to say the least, and the F-keys I only use then I debug and need to step through my code. I do other things when developing than stepping through my code.

I have my caps-lock key mapped to esc and that solves that issue- a bigger issue for me is not having volume keys available all the time.

One better: I have my caps-lock key mapped to control, then use the ControlEscape "spoon"[1] for Hammerspoon[2] to allow it to also be an ESC key. The insight is that "control" is held, but "esc" is momentary, allowing these functions to be overlaid. It works great, nary a hiccup.

Way beyond "fixing" the Touch Bar's lack of ESC, this is far and away my preferred usage now.

[1] https://github.com/jasonrudolph/ControlEscape.spoon – a plugin (aka "spoon") for Hammerspoon.

[2] https://www.hammerspoon.org/ – a fantastic UI event scripting and customization tool for macOS

Yeah, Karabiner-Elements has that option and it's great. There is something satisfying about smashing that ESC button sometimes though in some contexts. :(

And then you go to use another machine with a full keyboard... Frustration. I agree: mapping keys is a simple and easy fix. But, it's frustrating if you switch between machines. I literally cannot type on my MBP from work after using my fantastic mechanical keyboard all day. Jarring is an understatement.

I want a full, physical keyboard. That's it. I won't buy another MacBook if Apple continues to forcefeed that pile of garbage as the only option. I said this in another comment a while ago: people who like Touchbar don't type. They're point and click users. People who type for a living despise it. I realize there are outliers but that's a pretty accurate characterization.

To be clear: what I've described is not a "fix" – it's an unalloyed improvement. I use this configuration uniformly across all keyboards: control and ESC on the home row FTW.

Also, take your angry generalizations about TouchBar users elsewhere. Aside from the ESC key loss I'm fine with the TouchBar, and know quite a few competent touch-typist developers who really like it as well. It is very divisive, but please leave off characterizing others' preferences according to your own frustration.

And I really do understand your frustration with the keyboards. They're just not great, and the reliability problems are a disaster. The only silver lining is that there's pretty reliable info that Apple is switching back to scissor mechanism keyboards for its laptops this year. Doesn't help the rest of us stuck with the "bad" years keyboards, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or even play/pause buttons

I did the same, plus used Karabiner to disable the Touch Bar escape "key" and set the touchbar to only show volume, brightness, kbd brightness regardless of app running.

In that mode it's OK, but I still have to look down to mute the sound, which is inconvenient.

In 3 years of work laptop use I don't think I've ever once encountered an app that actually provides useful enough controls to depose my default function controls of

1. Mission control 2. Brightness down 3. Brightness up 4. Previous track 5. Play/pause 6. Next track 7. Volume down 8. Volume up

After experimenting with all of the apps I use every day to see what controls they could provide, I ended up just disabling the app-specific touchbar controls entirely and going with my defaults for every app.

I know it's personal preference how everyone likes their own machine configured, but as someone who gets zero value out of the OLED display, it's frustrating how vastly worse an experience it is than than it needs to be. The touch bar is clumsy with its zero touch feedback, so that I'm always accidentally pressing it with my fingertips when using the number row, and it drives me crazy. It's so much worse than the function keys that even if they fixed the utterly broken keyboard mechanism I would never buy a touchbar Macbook. Fortunately, Apple is making it a really easy decision, since their display panels aren't even close to being the best anymore, their core components are perennially outdated and overpriced, and MacOS has long been neglected. What else is there? The touchpad? I just use a high-end gaming mouse because it's about a billion times more precise and reliable.

That sounds like Quicksilver from a long time ago, I wonder what took its place. I know Spotlight took a lot of the filesearch features, but the UI automation and macro functionality were some real powerful stuff.

I don't see what you're saying the connection is to Quicksilver, but I believe the modern replacements are Alfred and LaunchBar. I have licenses for both but ended up sticking with LaunchBar for my MacOS machines because I don't need the more powerful automation features of Alfred.

Alfred+Dash have been an amazing improvement to my workflow. Type in "torch batch" and suddenly you have all the docs for Pytorch's Batchnorm functions right there.

If you're accidentally pressing it when hitting the number keys, your finger positions must be way off. It's not like the number keys are thin at all. Regarding the gaming mouse, if all you use the touchpad for is point and click a mouse is a decent replacement - that goes for all touchpads. I'd like to see you do three-finger-right-swipe or four-finger-pinch on a gaming mouse, though. :P

I love the TouchBar as well - it would be perfect from my perspective if they had kept the Escape key.

That is literally my only gripe with it

There’s tools out there like BetterTouchTool and I imagine several others than allow you to do this and more.

BTT cannot add a physical Escape key.

Since it seems like we’re already near tongue-in-cheek but still functional: it doesn’t need to; there’s a perfectly good oversized one sitting at the left end of the home row. If you’d like, you can even make it both Escape (by itself) and Control (when used in combination with another key).

I would like you to be able to buy a laptop with the TouchBar. However, I would like to be able to buy a laptop without one.

I wish Apple sold MBPs without a touchbar just so I could stop hearing about it in every single thread.

You’re in a thread about Apple keyboards. However, I am confident you could find a thread elsewhere that isn’t discussing TouchBars.

This one perhaps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20531955

I think it’s here to stay, too, and thankfully the main issue with it is fixable: the lack of tactile feedforward/feedback. If the display had little grooves to separate the controls and used the same 100% convincing fake button travel used in the trackpad, I think it would be an excellent enhanced fn key row. You need to be able to rest your finger lightly on a key without pressing it. (The same needs to happen with smartphones/tablets too, fwiw)

They should have both a function key row and a touchbar then.

It has value, it doesnt have enough value to remove an entire row of keys that have been of use for decades.

I think it is mainly an irritation for "power users". Can't imagine the average person using function keys or caring that they are gone, they just use the GUI to do everything. The touchbar is great for those people because it takes options that they might normally have to use multiple clicks to get to, and puts them on the keyboard.

I also keep touching the TouchBar a lot by accident and it can drive me crazy. It may actually be not that bad if it behaved more like keyboard key so you had to apply a little pressure before it gets triggered. Especially when web browsing with the MacBook on my lap I constantly touch some part of the touchbar a little and trigger some random function.

Yeah it would have been cool if they were buttons but with LCD or E-ink programmable functions and displays. Kind of like a stream deck. Personally though I would have been happy with the touch bar AND a row of function keys. If you look at the Macbook there is a ton of space above the keyboard for this...

I came here to say exactly this. And I don't even own an MBP.

I find the Touch Bar extremely useful when the app supports it. JetBrains IDE’s have excellent touchbar support. Very easy to configure. All my most used shortcuts and macros are mapped, big productivity gains I feel.

haptic feedback would be even better

How about buttons with miniature displays? Like that one attempt at making one with oled displays all these years ago by a design bureau.

I've posted before, but the touch bar is not for the HN crowd.

It's for graphics/video/audio professionals, the original Mac "pro" market, where it's a super-useful ultra-flexible slider/picker that works far better than a trackpad or mouse for that purpose. And the ones I know love it.

I get most HN'ers don't like it (and I personally have no use for it), but Apple didn't build it because they're dumb or are going for style over substance. It's just a different target market.

Those professionals use desktops, not the fanless, battery powered, port-less, glue and solder mess that is the current Macbook lineup.

No? Most all of my friends are graphics pros, and they largely prefer working on their laptop when possible.

My little hobby circle is audio, and the touchbar is almost universally loved there too.

Interesting! I have a friend who does audio engineering and soundtracks for film studios here in Toronto. Him and his coworkers swear by the old cheese graters. They're all contractors so they're responsible for maintaining their own equipment. And since their work is very seasonal, purchasing new equipment is not always an option when you don't know when your next contract is coming.

Edit: asked him about the touch bar, he says he doesn't want to change his workflow to use something new when he's got all this audio equipment that works fine.

I probably shouldn't name names without consulting them, but two of the bigger graphic design firms in Australia (bigger by half the products you see in a day are done by them) that I know fairly well are pretty much all Macbooks.

The CEO and team leads also get iMacs for the office, but extensively use the laptops. There is exactly one tower in each office - the render farm.

Couldn't they make everyone happy by keeping both a physical ESC key and the touch bar?

Yeah; to me this is the thing that is so strange: removing the function keys? OK, I get it. I used to use the function keys a lot 25 years ago, but I think I haven't used them once in over a decade (note: I mean "as function keys", as opposed to "as media control keys"). But removing the escape key? That key is still being used by a lot of people and software, and I don't just mean us console editor people :/.

I'm happy about it, if only because it finally got me to adopt mapping CAPS to Esc, which is glorious.

But where do you have ctrl mapped to?

My 3-week old last gen butterfly keyboard's Caps lock is starting to fail...

I'm not happy about it, because I have Caps mapped to control, and last I checked, you can't map the bottom-left ctrl key to Esc. I actually don't have a MacBook anymore because of this.

You can do that. That’s how I have mine set up currently.

System Preferences->Keyboard->Modifiers

You can swap Control to Espace there (probably the same place you mapped Caps to Control???)

But I want physical volume buttons, too! (The Touch Bar volume buttons aren't available at all when video is in full screen mode.)

I don't understand why it isn't an optional feature.

> where it's a super-useful ultra-flexible slider/picker that works far better than a trackpad or mouse for that purpose.

You know what else does that? A touch screen. Apple seems to be okay with it for the phones/pads. It would also be cheaper (since it's just an overlay on the glass). And the touch area would be the size of the screen that you're looking at, rather than a narrow strip you have to shift your eyes to.

As a professional photographer, there is no way I'd want to be processing images using a fingerprint marked screen.

You can choose not to touch your screen. Also plenty of people are editing images and videos on iPhones and iPads this very minute.

Apple should make the touch bar larger like Asus had done: https://mashable.com/article/asus-zenbook-pro-duo-dual-scree...

Apple has a trackpad the size of a small screen, it’s also the best trackpad on the market by far. No need for a touch screen - I’ve owned them and find them utterly useless and annoying to try to keep clean.

And I've posted before, but the applications that actually have good integrations for that already have better integrations with an iPad. Logic Remote beats the heck out of Logic On A Touch Bar and is pretty much square in the same spendy-bracket.

OTOH a huge part of the creative market vastly prefers using desktop machines for better performance. Even if you connect a bigger monitor to a MBP you are most likely going to use an external keyboard.

My mid-2012 MBP is holding up just fine so I'll keep waiting and hoping. 7 years old, not a single flaw or hick-up. (Have two, one at work, one at home).

Macs generally receive updates for seven years.

They generally receive updates until there is a reason why they can't.

I really thought the Touch Bar would grow on me, and now a year or so later it's just as frustrating and unintuitive as it was on day one.

My wife and I rarely watch television, but when we do it's on our MBP. There literally isn't a way to adjust the volume on full screen video using just the keyboard; you have to exit full screen mode (to revert the Touch Bar to its default set of buttons), and then adjust the volume slider (which is still another screen deep).

It's infuriating.

Have only and exactly the controls you want on your touchbar: https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-a-complete-t...

A solution to a problem that shouldn't exist, in my opinion. That's fine if you want to try and sell TouchBars, but still give me the option to buy a laptop without one.

I'm still holding out hope for a good keyboard and a proper row of keys along the top. In the meantime, I'm typing this on a 2012 MacBook Pro.

If you go to System Preferences > Keyboard, you can change the "Touch Bar shows" option from "App Controls" to "Expanded Control Strip" to have the default set of buttons showing all the time.

If you set the default to function keys, you can also set the fn key to show the expanded control strip too.

Of course if it's just going to show the default set of buttons all the time, that's a feature also achievable with... actual keys.

Thank you! I couldn't figure out how to do that.

Default keys won’t prevent the touchbar from freezing or bugging out, which has occurred multiple times for me. It’s odd to make such important keys software based and prone to non mechanical failure.

I wonder what fails more often, the touchbar or mechanical keys. In any case, though, the touchbar is the anti-feature nobody asked for.

I've had a TouchBar MacBook Pro for about 2 years now. The TouchBar has frozen or crashed on me multiple times. Apart from the terrible butterfly keyboard on this same computer which also tends to fail, literallyt never in 35-ish years using computers I had a mechanical key failing on me.

This doesn't excuse Apple's poor design, but I highly recommend Keyboard Maestro to solve this problem for you. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to actions in specific programs (and much, much more) ... super useful program.

https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/

Not sure what you're talking about. Volume control works normally for me full screen.

Works normally for me, no need to exit full screen. I would say the more frustrating thing is that once you change the volume, the Touch Bar takes a while to turn off so you are left with the distraction when watching video.

Touchbar Volume controls on fullscreen video work for me - can I ask which video application are you using?

I felt the same way, and after maybe 2 years I still hate it - the only thing I ever want to use on it is the F-keys, rendering it useless.

Actually, worse than useless - I also run Bootstrap on my MBP, and when using keys on the touch bar you have to leave something like a 2s delay between each press for it to register. Maddening when F5 stepping through code!

When I first got it I was like "This isn't as bad as people make it out to be"... but now 1 year in and I want to throw this thing across the room at least once a day because my finger grazed something on the touchbar and totally messed up whatever I was doing.

When I bought a Macbook in 2006, it came with a remote-control. I guess they don't do this anymore?

They certainly don’t come with anything nonessential anymore.

They don't even come with a three prong extension cord anymore.

The replacement USB-C chargers don't even come with any way of connecting to the computer.

This is part of my frustration with Apple lately. Buying an Apple product, any Apple product, used to be a premium experience. You received everything you needed, and more. There were plenty of cords, controllers, etc. and even stickers! The packaging was beautiful to look at, easy to work with (no squeaky Styrofoam!), and cleverly constructed. You were excited to get the package home and open it.

Now, Apple seems to cut corners where ever possible; as someone else mentioned the power brick no longer includes an extension cable. To make matters worse, the USB-C cable they do include is a "power only" cable and won't allow you to hook up other things to your MBP. This means to hook up your monitor to your new computer you have to remember to purchase a "real" USB-C cable.

This is on a product that costs thousands of dollars! Can they not afford to provide a usable set of cables with your $2,500 computer?

It's cheap crap.

If they had real buttons that could be be completely dynamic it would be better. Basically what we see with a stream deck.

In VLC, you could use up/down arrow keys to control volume.

I 100% agree with you, but definitely check out pock.dev. Saw it on HN a little while ago, it shows your dock in the touchbar and you can customize it to add music/brightness/volume controls as well. At least for me, it actually makes the touchbar useful since I can hide the on-screen dock and still see at a glance if I have notifications, which apps are open, and what Spotify is playing (I’ve heard bettertouchtool can do something similar too)

You can set the bar to always show certain widgets. I have mine always show keyboard light, brightness and volume control. This doesn’t require any 3rd party software

But it still lights up whenever you want it to be dark (like when a full screen video starts), and is dark whenever you actually need to look it it (when you decide to adjust the volume a few minutes later).

(Disclaimer: I never owned a TouchBar Mac.)

There are a few applications which enhance the TouchBar in one way or another. Perhaps the best idea I've seen is the one where it put the Dock in the TouchBar.

At this point Apple should just release a mid-2015 MBPr with modern hardware and call it the "MacBook Pro Classic".

That's definitely when they peaked.

Or the “MacBook SE”.

I had to replace a very old MBP recently and couldn't stomach the keyboard, touch bar and lack of ports on the new models, so I bought a used Mid 2015r in mint condition. Best computer I ever owned.

If Apple were to re-release that machine with upgraded CPU, graphics card, memory and storage, I would buy one in an instant.

Just bought one on amazon refurbished. Best. Laptop. Ever.

The battery on my 13" MBPr, which I bought on 2015, recently begun to swell. Apple support said that a swollen battery is very dangerous, then proceeded to confirm out that its warranty was expired and there was no replacement program for the 13", contrary to the 15" MBPr from 2015. Battery replacement 300€, which is frankly preposterous.

I shortly contemplated getting a new MBPr, but with all the stories circulating about the butterfly keyboards and the touch bar, went with an ifixit battery replacement kit, about 100€.

I'm generally very reluctant to carry out these types of sensitive repairs myself, but opted to do it with help from a friend. If, instead of buying a new one, the customer prefers to keep a 2015 MBPr and is even willing to run the gauntlet of carrying out a difficult repair themselves, something's seriously wrong. And Apple should take notice.

At this point Apple should just release a mid-2015 MBPr with modern hardware and call it the "MacBook Pro Classic".

The 2105 MBP is no prize either. I just got an email this morning that it's covered by the battery recall — I had checked when the recall was initially announced and it wasn't included.

Soldered storage means I can't just pop my drive out and give it to Apple for repair. Glued in batteries mean I can't just pop the battery out with a quarter and swap it out at an Apple store.

So what? Apple wants two weeks to repair the damn thing. Sure I'd like to be able to upgrade stuff, but ease of service is (now) an issue I've to contend with. This may very well be my last Apple notebook.

I’d finally upgrade my 2013 model if they do this.

I'm glad I got the heap MBP in 2016 (with function keys).

Keep going.

- Fix keyboard [check]

- Remove touchbar (or keep touchbar but also add back original function keys)

- Add MagSafe

- Add useful ports (USB-A, SD, HDMI)

- Add sufficient cooling

- Shrink touchpad to 2015 size

In other words, add TouchID to 2015 model, add some USB-C ports and upgrade internals.

It's pretty astonishing how a company like this can go backwards in so many ways.

Yep, same exact thing keeps happening to me. I kinda can’t believe it never occurred to Apple to put haptic feedback in the touchbar, at least then you’d feel it when you accidentally press a button instead of wondering if you’re going insane because you keep unintentionally lowering the screen brightness

This. Especially frustrating when accidentally hitting Mission Control or Expose.

Would love to see the touch bar removed (keeping TouchID). Or at the very least, add haptic feedback like 3D Touch to stop gliding fingers from triggering the buttons.

> Negative public opinion, multiple lawsuits, and ongoing issues with all keyboards in Mac notebooks released since 2015 have led Apple to launch a keyboard repair program that applies to all Macs with a butterfly keyboard, including 2019 models.

Kind of glossing over the rather important detail that Apple's keyboard repair program entitles you to an exact replacement of the same broken-ass keyboard design that caused your issue in the first place. If I remember correctly, they won't even upgrade you to their later-generation butterfly mechanism; if you go in with a membrane-less 1st-generation keyboard, that's what you get as a replacement.

I think that because the keyboard is connected to the logic board it is literally impossible for Apple to give you a newer keyboard without also giving you a logic board for a later gen pro which won't work with the later gen MacBook. That's also (part of) the reason why repairs are so expensive, most of the parts are connected into a few large chunks that have to be replaced all at once.

Unless they redesigned the part, to fix the problem, which is what they should do.

They should not have constructed it this way in the first place.

For how long will they replace those keyboards for free?

They're covered for four years after first retail sale from Apple [0].

[0] https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n...

Completely Apple's own fault, too. A rating of only 1 on iFixit's "Laptop Repairability Scores":

"The top case assembly, including the keyboard, battery, speakers, and Touch Bar, is glued together—making all those components impractical to replace separately."

https://www.ifixit.com/laptop-repairability

Apple was also one of the first companies to solder in the RAM so it couldn’t be upgraded. I miss being able to make my laptop significantly faster without upgrading it completely.

There are still companies which allow that. Support them instead.

Anti consumer policies should be punished, especially if it matters to you.

I could never handle this kind of abuse.

Connected to the logic board? On mine they just replaced the whole top case assembly. My understanding is that the replacement swapped out everything other than the display and the logic board, including the battery.

Same on my model from around 2016. One key cap came off. Got back essentially a new laptop (as far as I can tell) from repair with new body - the display stayed the same. I wonder how many people will scam them this way now.

How is this a scam? They made a defective product that is intentionally difficult to service. If Apple is the one being most affected by their own poor design decisions their finances surely don't show it.

I meant how many people will break one key in a trivial way to get a bigger replacement they actually would have to pay for otherwise. (because the warranty ran out)

Its a defective keyboard design, it will fail sooner or later. The only difference is whether Apple replaces the keyboard now or a few months down the road.

Alternately, Apple could make a keyboard that doesn't trivially break. Then they wouldn't be under class action pressure to repair and replace them.

To whatever extent it's possible for an end user to "trigger" a failure covered under the extended warranty; it's 100% Apple's fault for making it the way they did. If the keyboards could be trivially swapped (say tool less) and cheaply produced then this would be far less of an issue.

It's a bad keyboard, but it's issues are made far far worse due to the lack of a serviceable design. Hopefully this experience of shooting themselves in the foot will make them reconsider repairable hardware.

This is not correct, the top case replacement does not include the logic board.

Pretty sure this is not the case. I recently had mine serviced and I'm almost positive I was told by the Genius that they were swapping in the latest gen keyboard.

Yeah, same. And the key presses on the new one feel noticeably different, too.

That's not entirely true. The third-generation butterfly keyboards will be replaced with the fourth-generation keyboards. See https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/21/18634247/macbook-butterfl...

I actually got used to the 2018 MBA butterfly despite my initial dislike and hesitation. That being said, I'm grateful for all the lobbying to improve butterfly keyboards because I got a much improved version with a replacement program in case one of these horrific ghost finger bugs or malfunctions occur. I definitely would not have bought this MBA if it had the same butterfly keyboard as a MacBook or pre 2017 MacBook Pro.

I just hope that the next incarnation of scissors keyboards or whatever mechanism they adopt doesn't go through another multi-year cycle of defective hardware, denials and silent upgrades.

I wonder if this move will trigger people who prefer butterfly keyboards or only know butterfly keyboards if and when it gets released.

Now drop that f-word TouchBar and I'd buy a MacBook again!

Butterfly Keyboard Mechanism Illustration - https://theengineerscafe.com/butterfly-keyboard/

For anyone curious to compare, an animation of a mechanical keyboard switch: https://www.cherrymx.de/en/mx-original/mx-brown.html#techSpe...

Click on top of the page for other switch types.

Gotta flex my (amazing) Topre keyboard, which is "mechanical" as well but works on a totally different capacitive touch mechanism:

https://i.imgur.com/SnfIDbe.jpg

The deskthority wiki is by far the greatest collection of keyboard lore in the world: https://deskthority.net/wiki/Main_Page

That ship has long long sailed, but it's so weird talking about the mechanical design of the different keyboard switches to call one of the keyboard a 'mechanical keyboard'

You know, I'm not opposed to the butterfly mechanism itself. I want my keys to be stable and accurate and it looks like this is better than the old scissor type. However, I would like a nice feel when typing and don't want a piece of dust to disable my keyboard. Can't the butterfly mechanism satisfy those requirements as well?

Can we get MagSafe back too? The thinness thing went way too far.

Preferably without the silicone wiring that fails constantly? I've had to fix so many of those crappy power cables...

The end that plugs into the wall is a detachable cable, which is nice. Unfortunately, the other cable is hardwired to the charger brick. The charger is $95 (CAD) and I've had to replace it twice solely due to cable damage. What a waste.

MagSafe caused fires.

How so? What is the mechanism?

Don’t know why I got downvoted. This happened a lot in the 00s, including to someone I know.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/...

This is my first time hearing of this.

They’re most likely getting rid of it (if they do) because of the high failure rates, rather than for any other reason. The keyboard works fine when it’s working—it just constantly fails due to dust.

Yup.

I think anyone expecting a return to the old keyboard is in for a disappointment. More likely to me would be a new scissor with butterfly-style travel, an evolved butterfly, or something new altogether.

Ming-Chi Kuo has a pretty good track record for iPhone predictions, but his Mac stuff is all over the place.

Agreed. Though I think it's worth noting that a not-insignificant number of users loath the butterfly keyboard for other reasons, including: key feel, ease of orientation, general comfort. I am among those users and know a lot of others who feel similarly: typing on the butterfly keyboard feels akin to typing on concrete, with next to no real feedback and usually eventually causes pain in my fingertips. I also tend to make a lot of typos because I can never feel where my hands are on this keyboard, which is something I've never experienced on any other keyboard. I understand that there are things I'm doing personally (like typing too hard, most likely) that exacerbate these issues, but I've never had an issue with any other keyboard. The fact that Apple has managed to trigger these issues for an otherwise-fine keyboard user is concerning.

Thank you for bringing this up. It isn’t something I usually hear people talk about. I loathe the feel of the butterfly keyboard. Even if it was 100% reliable, I would never buy a computer with one. I am, however, seriously considering upgrading my 2015 mbp with this 16 inch model if it has a different keyboard.

It's not likely dust because if it was, there would be random key issues but most people report similar keys (E for an example).

This redditor's research should explain why it is not likely the dust and why Apple is having a hard time pinpointing it on the first few tries; https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/bjw4js/macbook_pr...

I'd place my bet on the metal materials they use; which is why they've replaced it in the 4th retry.

For me it was dust under the Q key, not a common key. I don’t see why dust is more likely to land behind the most used keys either. Also that redditor concludes by saying the cause is unknown.

I haven’t had any keyboard issues on my 2016 and 2018 models since I regularly started air spraying the keyboards.

It’s dust.

Nope, not just dust. :)

My keycaps came off because I don't hit them square on, and perhaps I'm a tad more aggressive than most (emacs + vim user). It put stress on the two C-clamps at the top of those keys and they weaken their grasp before ultimately breaking from wear. I'm on my third keyboard replacement, the exact same keys failing first (ERTSDF). 2017 Macbook Pro.

I am familiar with the dust issues. And I yearn for the days where those were my only issues. Now I can't even type without having to put keycaps back on to keys.

Parent post said if it were dust, the keys would be randomly affected. Which AFAICT (after discussing with Apple store employees) is indeed the case. Some keys are slightly more prone to dust, eg the space bar because of its size, but any key can fail.

Your concern is I’m sure valid, but orthogonal to the post I was replying to.

It was dust (particulate matter) that got stuck under the keys about 3 times.

The butterfly mechanism is fine, as a class of mechanism, it's Apple's implementation which pushes the limits of sound engineering. It's perfectly possible for that kind of keyswitch to have large travel and a good actuation threshold.

The problem is that dust gets trapped underneath it.

Reminds me of the VAG TSI problems - people avoid VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat gasoline cars with those engines from around 2007 to 2013 (don't remember the exact years).

Perhaps they aim to get rid of the keyboard completely, replacing it with a haptic feedback capable device and a glass plate with the keys inscribed?

That would have all the pleasures of typing on a table, hitting your fingertips on a hard surface. Try it.

I already have a touch bar so I know what it's like.

It's like a keyboard, except flakier and with improved accidental inputs!

It's not like a keyboard. It's like hitting something hard that hurts your fingertips. And you can't compare it to a phone either, because on a phone you type one-handed. The two-hand keyboard typing experience uses much more kinetic energy.

Or you know, every smartphone and tablets with a hard glass cover touchscreen?

Obviously that is not a good enough solution for people who type a lot, or they wouldn't need keyboard cases for the iPad.

Initially I was in agreement, but.. I don't know. The iPhone's virtual click does have a strange feeling to it, but you really do get used to it feeling like a click, without it even moving. Maybe they could pull that concept off on a keyboard scale?

I actually think that there might be something to it. The current keyboards already have a small key travel. A solid-state keyboard with “taptic” feedback from individual keys could feel ok.

You may be on to something.

They did the same thing with the iPhone 7. They removed the physical home button and simulated feedback with vibration. Then they got rid of the home button for the iPhone X.

The current haptic feedback on the touchpad works fine because all you need to know is that you pressed the touchpad, not where you pressed it.

That's no longer true once you have a range of keys that you are pressing. You need to ensure your fingers are properly aligned so that you press the key you intend before you press it. Without some actual structure, you don't get that feedback.

For all people love to talk about haptics, they miss the point: haptic feedback is feedback. As in, it happens after you do something.

Typing, unless you don't know how to type, is done entirely by feel. You have raised spots to align your hands, and then you work off muscle memory and the feel of the keys. Things you feel before you push the keys...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA

Repetitive Stress Injuries for the masses. How fun! As if using a laptop wasn't bad enough for RSI sufferers. Leave it to Apple to make it worse. I wouldn't be surprised though. The Apple of the last few years has been putting out shit product after shit product. Broken. Bad design. Overpriced. Shit.

Just in time for me to start thinking about replacing my 2010 mbp!

It still has iPhone slice, doesn't it? I'll wait with mine.

I’m not sure what that is.

The Touch Bar. Makes more sense to call it iPad Slice though.

I thought it was actually running watchOS.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13454052/apple-macbook-p...

The words “butterfly” and “die” never came together in my lexicon until I encountered the butterfly keyboard

With RSI, I don’t want more key travel.

Personally I have one of their separate wireless keyboards, more travel than the MBP itself has but still low profile (lower than the Mac itself).

Key travel isn't the single cause for RSI. I don't have RSI pain with a mechanical keyboard with huge key travel for an example.

For me, key travel isn't the issue, it's the bottoming out impact. A lot of people are hitting the bottom really hard, which actually increase the chances of RSI.

My mechanical keyboard also has a soft bottom out so that I don't actually have to hit anything, just gentle tap and it's all good. I can't actually learn to tap gentle with low key travel like Apple's keyboards. Strangely, I don't seem to have the same issue on the iPad's smart keyboard.

Apple keyboards are the worst for me with RSI, it hits bottom hard and it's too thin.

Maybe confirm that butterfly mechanism, for all its faults, limits RSI

Could not Apple place the touchbar between touchpad and keyboard and leave the function keys alone? That might please both camps and rid of controversy.

Right where you might rest your wrists while typing?

Not really. Wrists never rest between touchpad and keyboard.

I use Karabiner Elements to allow me to press and hold space while hitting 1234567890-= to get F1 through F12. I find this to be an acceptable workaround.

Too little, too late. Already switched off of Apple.

what is a scissor mechanism?

I searched “wiki keyboard scissor mechanism” on Google [1] and found the answer [2].

And since you didn’t know, you may find this comparison very helpful [3].

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=wiki+keyboard+scissor+mechan...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_technology#Scissor-sw...

[3] https://www.quora.com/What-precisely-is-a-butterfly-keyboard...

Slow news day?

I really wish Apple would stop messing around and give me a touch screen MacBook.

If they made a cherry mx notebook it would sell like gangbusters despite probably being heavier and thicker

Have you seen actual mx switches? I've got a handful on my desk here. Including the stems, they are ticker than my entire laptop by themselves. They just came out with "low-profile" switches, but they're still hardly thin at all. I really doubt many people would buy a laptop at least 3x the thickness of the current models.

(By the way, Cherry makes scratchy and cheap feeling switches. The low profile ones are even worse.)

https://www.theverge.com/2015/1/5/7495073/msi-mechanical-key...

Just to give you a sense of what you're asking for.

I used to carry a separate keyboard with my laptop for some classes I was talking....I would do that again rather than use the monstrosity you linked to.

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